


Life's a Beach

by splashfree



Series: Seven Ages [2]
Category: Free!
Genre: Birthday, Birthday Presents, Birthday Suit, Everything Birthday, Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, Rin Matsuoka's Otome Gokoro, lots of smooching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-06 23:39:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4241043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/splashfree/pseuds/splashfree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You need to think up better birthday presents."</p><p>Six months ago was Haru's birthday; a sub-chapter-type-thing from <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/3210665">And All the Men Merely Swimmers.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Life's a Beach

**Author's Note:**

> So, when I wrote [And All the Men Merely Swimmers,](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3210665) I did the math, and the date of Rin's departure was Haru's birthday. So I've been wanting to write a snippet about that for awhile. And seeing as it's Haru's birthday today, I thought this might be as good a time as any. So I hope you enjoy this incredibly self-indulgent piece of nonsensical fluff. 
> 
> Set about a year and a half after Rin and Haru graduate high school.

_June at the beach. The heady smell of ocean water. The cold sluice of ice cream against warm lips._

Haru is standing in the water. Like a mermaid whose existence depends on it, he is half-calf deep and gazing out over the iron stretch of ocean to where the bloodied sun dips into the horizon. The wind pulls at his hair, puffs under his t-shirt, and Rin is sure that no sight better than this one exists.

Haruka Nanase is standing in the water. In the Odaiba Bay. Looking West, but thinking South, in perfect inverse to Rin’s childhood. Stumbling down to the beach in the morning, watching the sun rise. Looking East, thinking North.

 _Hello Haru_.

It’s a pity to break from his vantage point, but the pull to Haru has always been irresistible, and besides, isn’t this what they meant when they said opposites attract? Like magnets – like their positive and negative aspects can’t stop knocking into each other, like it’s destined, like somehow by being together they keep the world spinning, keep time moving forward—

“Rin.”

Haru speaks flatly to the horizon, doesn’t bother to look at him. Rin’s smile is quiet.

“What?”

“You need to think up better birthday presents.”

Rin chuckles, slipping his arms around Haru’s waist from behind, nesting his chin on his shoulder. His fingers toy with the leather bracelet looped around Haru’s wrist, its counterpart fastened around his own right. “I said I was sorry, didn’t I?”

Haru doesn’t acknowledge him, just keeps staring out at the water, the line of his shoulders tight. Anxious. It’s always easier to communicate with Haru via physical contact, Rin has come to realize. He doesn’t know how Makoto does it with just a glance, but unless Rin has a hand on Haru, he often feels hopeless to reach him. Like Haru is a sentence full of too many words he doesn’t understand, spoken without inflection or context. Like this, though—with the warmth of Haru’s back against his chest, the tiny hitch in his breath, the compact shoulders stubbornly braced—Rin barely needs words to speak.

He curls around Haru, passing a flat hand from his stomach to his chest, kissing the side of his neck.

“Worst birthday present ever,” Haru says, and Rin chuckles into his skin, tightening his arms.

“Yeah,” he agrees softly. “I’m the worst.”

“As long as you understand that.”

Rin hooks his chin over Haru’s shoulder again, slipping his hands into the pockets of Haru’s shorts.

“Y’know,” he says, staring at the sun. “Some people would just say, ‘I’ll miss you.’”

“Worst birthday present ever,” Haru repeats. It’s too easy to keep kissing Haru’s neck, to savor the razor thin shiver that spikes from crown to his heels as Rin’s teeth graze his nape.

“Like I said,” Rin half-grins, half-growls, “I’m sorry.”

Haru considers this, standing very quietly for a long time before he offers, “It can’t be helped.”

“It can’t be helped.”

“Rin.”

Rin waits, watching Haru’s cheek. He smells like boy, like beach, like light sweat and seawater and sweet shampoo.

“I’ll miss you.”

They are short, mimicked words, and Rin loves them, loves the way they sound in Haru’s mouth, the fact that they’re there in the first place, the fact that Haru said them for him. If he could solve all ills with kissing, Rin would spin him around on the spot and kiss him until they’re both gasping and melting into the water around them and on any other day, maybe he’d try. But there isn’t enough daylight left in the sky, and there aren’t enough hours left in this day, so Rin just holds him tighter, buries his eyes against the curve of Haru’s neck and chuckles, “See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Haru mumbles at him to shut up, and Rin grins into his hair. Kisses his head.

“I’ll miss you too,” Rin murmurs against his ear. “Haru.”

“Whatever,” Haru says, but the goosebumps rising in droves up his arms tell Rin everything he needs to know.

 

 

The pull to Haru has always been irresistible, but never more so than now, when Rin is being pulled away.

And away is the last place Rin wants to be, when Haru is gasping beneath him, lips parted in need and hands twisting in the bed sheets. And no, Rin takes it back, _this_ is the best sight he can possibly imagine: the pink flush of pale skin; black hair smeared with sweat; eyes bluer than pool water, striking, bright, and urgent. When he has this, Rin wonders dizzily, feeling Haru’s muscles seize and the telling grip on the back of his neck, who needs Olympic dreams?

Afterwards, when he’s got Haru trapped in the loose circle of his arm, he says it: _fuck Australia,_ and the breathless laugh against his chest means everything. Because he knows – they both do – that Australia is where Rin belongs, for now anyway. That this – lying in bed with Haru, kissing the sweaty nape of his neck as Haru insists that Sydney can’t be all bad because it’s supposed to have great seafood – this will be waiting for him until he’s grown strong enough to keep it. Until they both have.

Yeah, Rin agrees, closing his eyes, the seafood is pretty decent. But no place beats Japan for New Year’s, so he’ll be back in December.

In six months.

“Hey,” Rin says, catching the time on the bedside table with a grin and no little amount of sadness. “Happy Birthday, Haru.”

Haru twists until he’s smothered against Rin’s shoulder.

“The worst,” he mumbles, and Rin can’t argue with him there.

 

 

He’s already packed, so when his buzzing phone wakes him, it’s just a matter of showering, brushing his teeth, and dressing in the dark before he’s ready to go. The sun barely outlines the curtains in weak, gray light and Haru is still asleep, dark lashes brushed across pale cheeks, bare arm embracing the rumpled space Rin occupied. (The bracelet, Rin thinks with a private smile, was a good choice.) Rin purposefully doesn’t stare, doesn’t torture himself, instead just presses a kiss to Haru’s temple, whispering as he stirs that the room is already paid for, just return the key to the desk by ten-thirty – and for chrissakes don’t touch the bottled water in the minibar; it’s not special, just overpriced.

“You’re leaving?” Haru mumbles, foggy with sleep.

“Yeah,” Rin says, thankful for the dark, because maybe his emotions can disappear here. Maybe he can pretend to feel any casual way about this moment and even convince himself. “Go back to sleep, it’s like four-thirty.”

“Hnm.” Rin can’t tell if that’s a sound of acquiescence or disapproval, but the next moment Haru has his hand bunched in his collar, mouth pressing blindly over his, and Rin gathers his face in his hands and desperately doesn’t think _six months, six months, six months_.

When they part for air, Rin shoves him. “Sleep,” he demands.

Haru flops back into bed with a groan, and makes no objection.

At least not until Rin has his hand on the doorknob, bag slung over his shoulder, heart locked down with the resolve to not take a second glance. The grip on his arm makes him jump, head knocking back against the door, and suddenly they’re kissing again, kissing in the dark, kissing to buy time before New Year’s when Rin will bundle off the airplane again and search the waiting crowd for eyes bluer than summer. Haru, here, now, naked and flush against him, is a flood, hands fisted into his shirt, lips soft and tongue insistent. It’s some kind of miracle that keeps Rin standing instead of diverting Haru back to bed and hoping bemusedly that his flight gets delayed.

Finally Haru releases him with one tiny, parting sigh. “Rin.” Haru’s eyes are still dreaming, gray as mercury in the dark. They blink slowly at him before Haru speaks. “I’ll see you.”

Rin swallows, manages a jerky nod. “Yeah,” he says, hating words, hating leaving, hating— “See you. Haru.”

Haru’s head sinks to Rin’s shoulder. “Better present next year,” he mumbles.

“Yeah.”

They’re silent, because there’s nothing to say. Nothing, except—

“Haru,” Rin says suddenly, “I—”

“Mackerel.”

Rin blinks, the rush of his words stymied, then dissolved in an instant. “Huh?”

“For my birthday,” Haru continues flatly. “Next year. I want mackerel.”

“…Okay.”

“From Sydney. Since it’s good there. The seafood.”

Rin coughs, laughs, breathless and halting, tipping his head back against the door. “Of course,” he says, and rolling his eyes feels good, feels normal. “Sure. It’s a promise.”

“Don’t forget,” says Haru.

“I won’t.” How could he ever?

“You might.”

“Then remind me.”

“Okay. Rin?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m tired,” Haru says, suddenly detaching and shuffling back to bed. “Go away so I can sleep.”

“You—”

His ideas of revenge have never been well-conceived, and Rin loses another three minutes to his scheme before he pushes a sleepy, kiss-drunk Haru back down onto the bed and finally storms out, lengthening his stride down the hallway to make up for lost time.

The sun has claimed its space in the sky by the time he reaches the airport. Rin blinks up at it, heaving in one long breath and finding one tiny smile.

Looking forward, thinking home.

_Later, Haru._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you found something you enjoyed.


End file.
